


pinpoints

by irreputablyyours



Series: mirador [1]
Category: South Park
Genre: Canon Compliant, M/M, Pre-Slash, Relationship Study, Sort Of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-29
Updated: 2020-09-29
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:27:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26708233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/irreputablyyours/pseuds/irreputablyyours
Summary: Here’s the thing: Kyle doesn't always hate Cartman. That’s kind of the problem, actually.
Relationships: Kyle Broflovski & Eric Cartman, Kyle Broflovski/Eric Cartman
Series: mirador [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1950385
Comments: 20
Kudos: 139





	pinpoints

**Author's Note:**

> Hi guys! So I figured I should post this before it got completely jossed by the upcoming Season 24, so...voilà, I guess. As always, please note that this is South Park fic, and anything that goes there can happen here. For the first part, I'm following canon, but afterward I kinda just took the ball and ran with it. While the focus is mostly Cartman and Kyle, do note that politics will be mocked, religions will be lampooned, characters (especially a certain red-jacketed child) will be assholes, and jokes of dubious taste will be made. If that's not your cup of tea, feel free to find something that is.

(i.)

Scott Tenorman is an asshole, of course. But Cartman is _worse._ Kyle sees it in his eyes; there’s something so broken in there that, even at nine, he can tell he’s better off getting the hell away from Eric Cartman.

He knows, objectively, that Cartman isn’t the one who pulls the trigger on Scott Tenorman’s parents. But he loaded the gun and cocked it.

Up until now, Cartman’s just been a brat; stuffing himself with Twinkies and whining until he’s blue in the face and never sharing a goddamn thing. He’s a menace to his mother, sure, but more an annoyance to society in general. 

When Kyle sees the look on Cartman’s face as he tells Scott what’s in his chili, he changes his mind.

And for the first time (it won’t be the last), he sets his shoulders and thinks, _someone’s gonna have to keep him in check._

Kyle’s got a martyr complex, okay. Ask anyone.

*

(ii.) 

Kenny _dies,_ right in front of their eyes, and Kyle could swear Cartman is sad. 

When he finds out he’s not, he’s more than happy to beat him up, of course.

The problem, Kyle finds, is that he believed him in the first place. More importantly, that, for some fucking reason, _he keeps doing it._

*

(iii.)

“I’m sorry, Kyle,” Cartman tells him, obviously trying to get an invite to Casa Bonita, and Kyle just rolls his eyes, waving a hand at him and smiling at him unkindly.

Cartman starts insulting him when he doesn’t get his way, and Kyle is so deeply unsurprised that he doesn’t even pause before slamming the door in Cartman’s face. Cartman thinks he’s so damned good at pretending, but Kyle knows better.

Cartman thinks wearing a fucking sweater signifies a change in character, for God’s sake. Some days Kyle feels like hitting himself for even hanging out with the guy.

But then Cartman goes and completely turns it all on its head, telling Kyle how he wants to be _friends_ and how he cares about Kyle and he doesn’t even care if Kyle invites him to his birthday party...

“That’s all I ever wanted to hear from you, Cartman,” Kyle says, and he’s kind of shocked when he realizes it’s true.

Cartman smiles, and Kyle thinks _what the hell_ , because Cartman’s flat out arranged murder when he hates someone, Kyle shouldn’t find this easy to believe him like that, but, well – he does.

Of course, Cartman’s lying, but that surprises Kyle less than the fact that he believed him in the first place.

*

(iv.)

Cartman doesn’t care when people get hurt. Cartman is also the most talented spokesperson to walk this earth since Winston Churchill (maybe Adolf Hitler would be a better comparison,) so Kyle believes it when he says he cares about keeping people’s feelings from getting hurt.

Maybe, he thinks, just this once, Cartman’s realized how much of a jerk he is when _his_ feelings get hurt, and learned the tiniest smidge of empathy. Maybe it’s more than that. Maybe. And Kyle hates to admit it, but he believes it, (wants to believe it, he thinks).

Kyle thought wrong, of course, but what stings is that Cartman was good enough at it to talk him out of his own principles, just so that he could have fucking _Family Guy_ taken off the air. It’s a good show, who cares if some people don’t like the jokes or get the humor?

He beats Cartman, and he makes himself promise never to believe him again.

(Promises are made for breaking, of course, but Kyle’s ten. He doesn’t know that yet.)

*

(v.)

The thing it, they don’t actually fight all the time. There are days – weeks, sometimes even _months_ – where Kyle will only feel a very slight desire to hit Cartman over the head with a cookie tray. Cartman is annoying as all hell and a son of a bitch and a bigot to boot, but he plays decent video games and comes up with the wackiest of schemes, some of which even Kyle has to admit are kind of smart, or at least useful. (He still owes him for getting that pedophile bitch to off herself. Half of him never wants to let Ike out of his sight again.)

Honestly, the four of them have gone through so much strange crap together that he honestly feels kind of weird whenever it’s just two of them – him and Stan get along great, of course, but sometimes he feels like something’s missing because no one’s insulting all his ideas and calling him a Jew.

*

(vi.)

“No, Cartman, you’re making me late and I’m not falling for one of your dumb pranks again.” He has no clue what Cartman has to gain from getting Kyle to stop him from freezing himself, but whatever it is, Kyle isn’t going to give it to him.

Of course, the entire future changes because of that call, but Kyle doesn’t notice - he was too focused on insulting Cartman.

*

(vii.)

Here’s the thing about Cartman: he makes Kyle wants to smash things. All the times Kyle’s said, _I am going to kill you,_ he’s meant it, or as much as you can really mean murder when you’re ten.

Shit like this drives him _nuts._

“Kike,” Cartman says victoriously, in front of Kyle’s parents, and Kyle wants to smash his teeth in.

Even he has to admit, though, it’s a pretty smart plan, faking a mental illness to get both sympathy and to get away with whatever he wants. If Kyle didn’t know Cartman well enough to time his watch to his weekly insane ideas, he might’ve fallen for it.

But he doesn’t – Kyle had learned his lesson when it comes to Cartman.

He could swear, after everything goes to hell and there’s no one left and a bunch of bodies lay strewn all over the floor, that Cartman gets this look in his eyes like he’s about to kiss him.

Kyle leaves shaking his head. It must’ve been a trick of the light.

*

(viii.)

Kyle knows he’s screwed as soon as he sees the leprechaun. The whole world-going-nuts, involving-the-US-government, terrorists-taking-over-the-nation’s-collective-imagination, actual-war stuff is just a sideshow. To Cartman, at least, because Cartman is a jerk like that.

He wants Kyle to _suck his balls._ Kyle cannot even process the immense stupidity of that. (Why didn’t he ask for money, or a video game, or _something?_ )

Just about everyone in South Park has long come to the conclusion that Eric Cartman is a sociopath, but sometimes it will hit Kyle in the face and he’ll be floored, by just how true it is.

Cartman is Cartman is Cartman, so of course he gets obsessed with the idea, because he exists solely to annoy and humiliate Kyle in equal measure. (Later on, Kyle will look back and wonder if that was all there was to it, but not today.) Cartman’s gotten obsessed with a lot of things, but this takes the cake.

And at the end, yeah, Kyle kind of wonders if saving Imaginationland was worth having to see a version of himself actually do what Cartman said, and be _happy_ about it. If that’s the version of him that pops up in Cartman’s imagination, Cartman’s been taking some _serious_ drugs.

He spends the next two weeks being as controversary as possible, just to prove his point. Cartman finally breaks when Kyle insists they go to a _salad_ place instead of McDonald’s. Stan and Kenny don’t evn bother to engage by now, while Kyle grins at the menu victoriously.

“What is _wrong_ with you, you salad-munching Jew bastard?” Cartman asks, staring with disgust at his Greek salad. Kyle had slipped the waiter an extra two dollars to tell him that they were out of ranch, and vinegar, and ketchup, and mustard.

Kyle looks at Cartman, seeing how he’s infuriated beyond belief, and flips back to the things Cartman had pictured him doing in front of a whole crowd of people. He’s still pissed, of course – probably never will not be – but if there’s one thing Kyle’s learned from Cartman it’s this; get even quickly, and don’t look back.

He just shrugs, grinning at Cartman. “Less than’s wrong with you,” He replies, and finds his Caesar isn’t even that bad.

(Sometimes he has weird dreams, where Cartman saves his life in the middle of the Pentagon in front of a huge crowd of people, but he dismisses it. The subconscious likes to play tricks; it’s a well-known fact.)

*

(ix.)

As a general rule, Kyle doesn’t believe in killing people, but he’s willing to make an exception just this once.

Cartman gave him _AIDS._ And he revels in it!

(In retrospect, maybe Kyle shouldn’t have laughed so hard at him for contracting a life-threatening disease. But it’s _Cartman._ If there’s anyone who deserves AIDS, it’s him.)

He has the audacity to pretend they’re somehow in it together. Kyle is inclined to break his Xbox regardless of whether they find a cure, that’s how pissed he is.

And to top it off, everyone thinks they’re...together.

(For some reason, Cartman completely fails to protest this. Kyle shrugs it off then, but later he’ll wonder why.)

*

(x.)

It’s kind of a relief when something nuts happens to someone that isn’t him. Kyle’s alright with letting Stan take center stage on his quest to rid the world of whale hunting. Kenny plays a mean guitar, and Cartman’s a ... _dramatic_ singer, he supposes, and they have fun while Stan saves the world, playing video games and getting burgers while occasionally tuning in to see if Stan’s succeeded. Him and Cartman don’t even fight the entire time, even when Cartman decides he needs to go join Stan now that he’s famous.

Kyle rolls his eyes, saying, “You’re such a fame-whore, fatass,” and Cartman replies “A famous fame-whore, soon enough!” gleefully as he steps onto the plane.

 _Jerk,_ Kyle thinks, but not very adamantly.

*

(xi.)

It becomes kind of an in-joke, actually. They don’t even pick fights about shit that matters, sometimes. Cartman will say that Twinkies are better than Oreos and they’ll go at it for two hours straight, (‘The structure of Oreos gives it better flavor, fatass!’ ‘Nu-uh! Twinkies are softer and they melt in your mouth.’) Half the time Kyle doesn’t even know what the hell they’re arguing about – the topics range from movies to politics to religion to interior decorating to international history to what Kyle thinks he’s having for dinner. All Kyle really knows is that he kind of forgets the world, when they’re bickering – he’ll only stop when he suddenly remembers he’s hungry or when he looks over to see Stan squeezing his eyes shut and humming as loudly as possible, or Kenny dead with a gun clutched in his lifeless hands.

It takes him months to figure out, but eventually Kyle realizes that he _likes_ fighting Cartman, not because he cares what they’re fighting about but because it’s kind of... nice, to have someone’s attention like that, all the time. His parents are distracted and care more about Ike anyways, Stan’s always off chasing popularity or babbling about Wendy, and Kyle’s never really sure where Kenny is, ever.

And Cartman is one of those people who’s so full of energy he kind of takes the spotlight in his own right. South Park is full of people who fade in and out; Stan, Kenny, their classmates, just about every adult – but Cartman is such an attention-sucking hog that you could compare him to a black hole, and it’s kind of nice to have that energy focused on you. (This is, Kyle thinks a bit later, maybe why Kyle gets a bit caught up with stopping Cartman’s harebrained schemes. Other than the fact that he’s an obvious danger to society, of course.)

*

(xii.)

“This again, you guys? Seriously? You’re literally going over the same things you did last week. And the week before that,” Stan says at the candy factory, and Kyle glances over at Cartman. Are they? Sometimes he does feel like a bit of a loop on repeat. But seriously, it’s _Cartman._ If Kyle doesn’t put him in his place (and insult his weight occasionally), he’ll probably take over the world and become a despot or something.

*

(xiiii.)

Kyle doesn’t know why it’s _Cartman_ getting sexually assaulted that riles him up so much – realistictally, he should be morally offended on behalf of just about _anyone_ else – but he just shakes his head and rolls with it.

At this point, he’s accepted it; like it or not, Cartman is his...something, not really his friend but not his full-time enemy either. Kyle lives in a town that gets blown up or caught in conspiracies practically every week; he tells himself he can deal with it.

And he can, it’s just that Cartman can get really weird sometimes. Like when he looks at Kyle and pinches his cheek and smiles like he actually means it (Cartman can be disarmingly genuine, or at least pretend to be. It’s why convincing people that he’s evil is so hard at first.)

Kyle thinks, for a brief moment, that Cartman actually means what he says, but he shakes his head at himself. Cartman is a liar and a cheat who’s never felt a genuine emotion in his life, and Kyle should know better by now.  
  


*

(xiv.)

Another thing about Cartman that Kyle hates acknowledging: he’s really fucking convincing. Even as he’s stereotyping Kyle (‘We need a Jew for an accountant’), he’s got this look in his eyes that tells Kyle; whatever he’s onto, it’s a goddamn gold mine. Kyle knows Cartman well enough - he can tell when he’s doing something out of pettiness, and when he actually thinks the idea he’s pursuing will go somewhere, and starting a crack baby sports league is in the second.

Sometimes, Kyle thinks that, given sufficient motivation, Cartman could take over the world.

(Sometimes, on his blackest days, he thinks that, if he did, Kyle would be standing there right next to him, bitching and moaning but still letting him run the show, letting him hurt people and exploit them and say all the dumb, stupid crap he wants. If only to see how it would all turn out, if only to see that manic gleam of _I know precisely what I’m doing and how I’m going to get what I want_ that pops up in Cartman’s eyes every few months.)

When he puts thirty percent of their money towards the orphanage, he expects a fight, and he’s ready for it, gloves off and all. He doesn’t expect Cartman to _like_ it; it disappoints him, but for a second he’s thinking; _wait, what if he actually ca-_

Trust Cartman to ruin it all.

*

(xv.)

Kyle tells himself not to bother with Cartman at Passover. It’s not important; it _isn’t,_ just another one of Cartman’s harebrained anti-Semitic schemes. He’s such an _idiot:_ half the time Kyle can’t even tell whether he believes his own lies. (He ignores the voice in the back of his head telling him that if Cartman’s an idiot so’s Kyle, because Kyle’s believed more than his fair share of Cartman’s lies.)

Cartman continues his quest to reveal the existence of the ‘Jewpacabra’ or whatever, and Kyle goes on with his life. When Cartman gets chained up and left for bait for the monster he should _know_ doesn’t exist, Kyle just keeps walking.

Kyle’s fallen for enough of Cartman’s schemes before; he doesn’t need another tally mark in his black book. It doesn’t matter how much Cartman pleads, or how much he seems to believe what he preaches; Kyle knows when Cartman’s lying.

(Later, Kyle will admit; Cartman wasn’t lying. That was Kyle, who wouldn’t admit to himself that Cartman could be anything short of malicious.)

He lays in bed and tries to sleep, but he can’t. He spends more than enough time sitting on the edge of his bed, sipping at a glass of water, trying to talk himself out of it. Cartman is a lazy, cunning, sonuvabitch bigot, and he deserves every bad thing that’s come for him. From AIDS to getting chained up – it’s all karma, Kyle tells himself.

He remembers how pleased he’d been that Cartman had gotten a deadly disease, and wonders if, a few months ago, he would’ve been more than happy to leave Cartman out in the cold.

...He doesn’t know. Maybe he’s become a better person, or worse, because either way he can’t sleep until his feet are hitting the ground and he’s walking back to the park, a pair of chain cutters swung over his shoulder.

He thinks: like it or not, Cartman is his...something. He thinks: he actually does seem to believe his own bullshit, this time. He thinks: it’s Passover. He thinks: despite himself, Kyle is kind of fond of Cartman.

He drags Cartman back home, and gives him a blanket, and tells himself not to examine it further.

*

(xvi.)

Kyle’s kind of amazed that Cartman goes as far as to stand up PC Principal for him, although if anyone else notices they don’t comment. He’s mostly too focused on proving that he’s right to notice, but it sticks in his mind like a sort of periphery note: _Cartman will take my side, sometimes._

It’s not a major surprise; Cartman’s a self-serving bastard who’d sell his soul for twenty dollars, never mind his _principles._ God knows he doesn’t have any. (Kyle once noticed Cartman hiding cats away, but he never commented on it.) Cartman would take Kyle’s side if he thought it’d benefit him, rivalry be damned.

But still. It’s funny; if Cartman can play at hero, then who the fuck is the villain?

(Kyle doesn’t know anymore. Everything’s gotten more confusing than he can handle, he thinks.)

*

(xvii.)

He doesn’t even think that there might be a parallel, that everyone else is looking with heartbreak at pictures of their girlfriends, and Kyle’s just gazing mournfully at a picture of Cartman.

Cartman brought it upon himself. He shouldn’t have trolled all those people. But some part of Kyle, the part that’s always wanted to be a lawyer, is talking about how they didn’t even _investigate_ whether the troll was him. They just _assumed_ , and that means they could be wrong, and that means they haven’t been playing fairly.

(Another part of him, that he profusely ignores, says that maybe he’s just sad that he won’t get to talk to Cartman anymore. Fighting him is kind of a pass-time, although he’s sure he can find something better to do with his time. If he puts his mind to it.)

*

(xviii.)

When Cartman ends up at the detention camp with him, he insists on sleeping in the ‘bed’ next to Kyle, claiming he’s a sneaky Jew rat who’ll run away if he doesn’t keep an eye on him.

Kyle just rolls his eyes and acquiesces, telling Cartman that even a sneaky Jew rat would have a hard time getting out of a cement-and-iron-bars cage. Cartman makes some crappy joke about the Holocaust and seems surprised when none of the Spanish kids start laughing, but shrugs it off and gets to sleep.

Kyle could swear Cartman was watching him at night, just a bit closer than he should’ve been. And he could _swear_ he saw Cartman’s eyes light up when Kyle said, “I’ve got an idea.”

*

(xix.)

Kyle turns eleven with minimal celebration, his mom dragging out a cake and saying they’ll let him do Laser Quest when he’s twelve. Stan nods in sympathy when he tells him, saying that they should have the guys over to play video games instead.

They play for like, seven hours straight, bickering and bitching and eating pizza well past two o’clock in the morning, but by four it’s just Kyle, staring up at the ceiling.

He wonders if he’s getting old now, remembering what happened to Stan when he had his tenth birthday. Kyle had dodged the bullet back then, but...soon he’ll be _twelve,_ and then thirteen, and after that he wants to stop counting because the whole thing is making his head spin. One day he’ll go to _high school_ and _university_ and _get a job_ and-

He shakes his head, tiptoeing up the stairs. He knows the way onto the roof, has for years, now.

He stands on the ledge and looks up at the stars, the wind in his hair.

“Thinking of finally doing this world a favor?” Someone says. Kyle starts, almost falls off the ledge. He must have been pretty damned distracted to have not heard Cartman’s thudding footsteps coming up the stairs.

He pulls himself back to the conversation, barely processing what Cartman’s saying.

“We’d be better off if you gave it a try, fatass,” He says once he gets a grip, stepping back and motioning towards the ledge. “Go right on ahead.”

“False claim, Kahl, the world could not survive without me.”

“We need you like butter needs maggots, alright.”

“Eh!” Cartman says, passing Kyle by so that he can sit down, his knees dangle over the ledge. Kyle contemplates pushing him, but settles for sitting next to him, well out of pushing distancing.

Kyle likes that Cartman doesn’t ask why he’s up here; either he knows or he doesn’t, and with Cartman Kyle’s never been any good at figuring stuff like that out.

“You think those aliens are watching us from up there?” Cartman points to a satellite, blinking as it moves through the starry night.

Kyle shrugs. “Probably,” and for a long time, there’s nothing, just the sound of end-of-summer crickets and the occasional car whizzing by.

“Hey, Kyle?” Cartman says, when Kyle’s eyes are just beginning to fall shut. “Yeah?” He replies, sounding drowsy even to himself.

“Happy Birthday,” Cartman says, and Kyle thinks – _thinks –_ he sees Cartman smiling. Sincerely. At him. What the fuck.

Kyle wakes up downstairs and doesn’t question it, because, well presents. He forgets about last night and puts it aside as a hallucination as soon as he sees Cartman’s gift – a copy of _Mein_ _Kampf_ (that absolute son of a bitch.)

The night’s no more than a faded memory when, later that day, they end up in Russia, trying to figure out whether or not the Kremlin rigged the election (again.)

Someone’s shouting _“Kak Nikson, my ne moshenniki!”_ Joe Biden is wrestling with Putin while Mr. Garrison cheers Putin on, a Russian official has a gun to Stan’s head and is accusing him of collaborating with Alexei Navalny, and Cartman is doing his best to try to convince a sergeant to lend him a nuke so that he can start in on his newest ethnic cleansing project that consists of bombing the whole of Africa.

Kenny died a few minutes back, in the same way Stan's about to if Kyle doesn’t get a weapon, quick, but all he’s got is his stupid copy of _Mein Kampf_ that he’d been carrying when a US official had dragged them onto his airplane. Kyle glares at that hateful, long-winded waste of paper, and tosses it on the ground.

A knife comes clattering out. Kyle tilts his head, confused, and glances over at Cartman, who’s still neck deep into trying to conduct a conversation in his less-than-novice Russian.

His eyebrows nearly hit his hairline, but he’s not about to ask questions. He grabs the knife, and goes off to save his best friend.

Later, he notices the knife’s got an engraving. _“Du gibst mir einen Grund zu kämpfen,_ ” it says, and Kyle throws it into the depths of his closet without even bothering to look up a translation. He’s had enough of Cartman’s spiel about the master race.

*

(xx.)

“There’s been something _wrong_ with you these last weeks, Cartman,” He says, pausing. He looks at Cartman, the way he’s not even threatening Kyle. His eyes are just...empty. Blank.

Silence. And _that’s_ why Kyle knows something is wrong. Because if this were Cartman, he’d tilt his head and smile mischievously, say something like, “And how so, Kyle?” Mispronouncing his name just to get on his nerves.

“Goddamnit!” He swears. It’s been a _month_ of this shit, of Cartman ignoring him and saying nothing and walking through life like a robot, nothing waking him up; not Kyle’s insults nor his mother’s bribery nor all the money or food in the world.

It makes Kyle want to stab something. At first it’d seemed like a dream come true; but Kyle knows better than to think that way, now. Not after what happened when they broke Cartman’s electronics. Like it or not, Kyle _likes_ Cartman, dumb shit bigot though he may be, and he’s accepted it, somewhat. It still haunts his nightmares occasionally.

Anyways.

Cartman looks at him blankly, and walks right by him.

“You fucking jerk!” He walks up to Cartman, and punches him, hard enough to knock teeth, his whole vision clouding with red. “Don’t fucking tell me you’ve just given up now, like everyone else!” He slaps a hand over his mouth, barely processing what he’s said, barely realizing he means it.

...Because that’s how it’s been, this last year. The pandemic’s gotten the best of most of them; Stan can barely hold a conversation, no one will even lift their gaze from their phone, people run away from you on the streets. They go to school, yeah, but try having a conversation with someone through a wall of glass and see how you feel.

Cartman hadn’t given a fuck; the school had suspended him like seven times for breaking the rules, and even though Kyle totally disagreed with him in every way, some part of him wanted to smile when Cartman was saying, _I don’t care if grandma dies, I wanna see my movie!_ A bowl of popcorn and cotton candy in hand.

Cartman blinks from where he’s splayed on the floor, turning to Kyle and rubbing his head. “Kyle,” he says, tilting his head. “Why the fuck did you punch me, you dumbass Jew?”

Kyle blinks. “Wha-“

“What the hell is wrong with you?”

“What the hell’s wrong with – what the hell’s wrong with _you!_ The last month you’ve been like a robot – fucking ‘yes, Mrs. Nelson’ and ‘You guys, we gotta stay safe,’ just marching in line – you didn’t even rip on me when I called you an intolerant fat fuck! What’s wrong with me – what’s been wrong with you, you son of a bitch?”

Cartman pauses, and glances up to where Kyle’s inadvertently pulled out his knife again. The way he’s holding it, the engraving shows.

“You kept my knife,” Cartman says, monotone.

Kyle looks at the knife like it’s a Barbara Streisand CD, and tosses it over his shoulder. He’d needed a weapon, it had been there – coincidence.

Something dawns in Cartman’s eyes, and Kyle _knows_ that whatever it is, he’s not going to like it. That’s the expression Cartman gets when he has his ‘reveals’ – like deciding he has superpowers or they need to make a three-phase movie universe. It is. Always. Bad news.

But, this time, Cartman just shakes his head. “I met a CIA guy a few weeks bad, they said they needed volunteers to try some new candy...”

“You dumbass!” Kyle blinks at how concerned he sounds. He’s sure he’s never used that tone with Cartman before.

He shakes his head.

“Alright, fine, let’s go sue some CIA agents for trying to brainwash you,” he says, and marches off.

“Are you coming or what?” He yells when he’s near the stairs, and doesn’t wait up.

Funny enough, Cartman does follow him, for once.

*

(xxi.)

At thirteen, Kyle’s got more than enough problems following him around – puberty, his upcoming school switch, his mom asking him every single day when he gets home, _do you know where you want to go for university, bubba?_

“Do you know where you want to go for university, bubba?”

“Oh for God’s sake,” Kyle mumbles into his jacket.

“What was that?” Kyle rolls his eyes.

“I thought I saw a giant snake,” he says, and keeps walking because he knows his mom’s not listening anyway. He chucks his bag onto his bed and starts begrudgingly at the floor.

Summer’s ending in two weeks, and Kyle has no clue what he’s doing. His whole life feels like it’s crashing down on him and he has no clue _why._ Like everyone’s started to expect things of him that he’s got no clue how to give – a plan for the future and a girlfriend and a job and- it’s all so _much_ and Kyle has no clue what to do with it.

He pulls out a book from his shelf, remembering with a rueful smile how Cartman had given him _Mein Kampf_ all those years back. Kyle’d tossed it in the trash, of course, but some part of him still wants a book to put up on his shelf – not _Mein Kampf,_ obviously, but something actually worth keeping up there, something signed by someone you love, something that tells you, _you are cared for,_ no matter what.

Well, some voice in the back of his head whispers, he has a knife, but that’s not really all that comforting.

*

(xxii.)

“What are you dressing up as for Halloween?” Kyle starts with, a week before he usually would. He's thinking they should do something awesome this year, of the actually-mindblowing variety, and he knows if they put it off any longer they'll just end up with some crappy last-minute frat boy getup. 

Stan makes a face. “Halloween, guys, seriously? We’re thirteen. We’re too old for that shit.”

“Shut up Stan, you hippie. You’re never too old for free candy.”

“Craig and his gang aren’t going.”

“More candy for us!”

“Yeah, seriously, dude, what’s gotten into you?” Kyle says. Stan shrugs. 

“I don’t know, you guys, I just feel like... things have been changing a lot in the last few years; I guess I just think....we’ve kind of got to grow up, you know.”

Kyle looks at Kenny quizzically, but he just shakes his head, shrugging. Kyle glances at Cartman.

“Stan, ‘growing up’ is a lie that adults invented to swindle you out of candy. You have to profit from existence while the world will still give you free shit just for being alive, at least until you’re old enough to go on welfare. Right, Kenny?”

Kenny looks offended. “Shut up, mhh mhmmhm mhm – hmm! You mhmm mmhm shit about being mhhm!” Stan nods at Kenny, shaking his head.

“Seriously, Cartman? We’re _thirteen._ We’ve got, like, five years to get our shit together. We can’t be out on the streets, getting candy, we should be...I don’t know, partying and doing drugs or something.”

“Dude, I think Kenny’s already done every drug in the book _for_ us.” Kenny nods. “And besides, man; like you said, soon we’re going to have to grow up. So why _don’t_ we go have some fun before it’s all over and we have to worry about shit like university applications and our jobs and relationship problems and shit?”

“Do what you want. I’m staying out on this one.” A few years ago, Kyle would’ve argued with Stan for a whole hour trying to talk him out of it. Now, he just shrugs. He’s accepted that there are some things he can’t change, and one of those things is Stan’s incapacity to defy popular opinion.

“Alright, dude, if you want to come you’re always welcome,” He says, and then grabs a pencil. “So, I’m thinking if we make a robot that can shoot lasers we might be able to get extra candy...”

“-And if we threaten to shoot people with the lasers, we’ll get the whole town!”

Kenny claps, Kyle rolls his eyes and him and Cartman get into an argument about ethics.

When they finally do set out for Halloween, Stan joins them. Kyle shrugs – he’s gotten used to it.

Somehow they decide the theme for the year is cyberpunk-Wild West fusion. Kyle, thankfully, doesn't draw the short straw and end up being the saloon girl – that honor goes to Kenny. Cartman goes as a renegade cowboy, and Kyle is the sheriff. Stan has a last-minute getup of a retarded horse. He gets there late, and Kyle just grins at him, internally suppressing a sigh – he’s used to being Stan’s backup plan, at this point. He grabs his pillowcase and sets out, looking over from the robot to Cartman, who’s clutching the control for their robot like it’s the clearest path to world domination.

“Hit it,” Kyle says. Cartman looks at him, fingers hovering over the button, and he _winks._

Then he presses the button, and the whole sky lights up.

*

(xxiii.)

“You guys, the Chinese are gonna bomb us!”

“Yeah, Cartman, whatever.”

“No, you guys, I’m seriously, look at this shit!”

Kyle rolls his eyes, glancing over at the news and running through the same speech he’s had for years. “Cartman, you racist, sexist, homophobic piece of shit, stop insulting other countries and their people just because you’re too ignorant to understand other cultures or indeed anything that exists outside your incredibly leaden skul-“

Cartman turns up the news.

Kenny: “Shit, man, not another bomb threat.”

Stan stares at it too. “You think we’re doing the Cold War again?”

“Holy fuck!” Kyle yells. “Guys, we’re gonna _die!_ ”

“They said that during 9/11.”

“And the Iraq war. And the Gulf war, and the Syrian refugee crisis, and the 2016 election, and the Coronavirus pandemic, and that time in Libya-“

“For God’s sake Stan you goddamned hippie _we are not talking about what happened in Libya-“_

Kyle marches straight out of Stan’s house and takes the first train to Washington. What follows is a convoluted hellfire of a day that ends with Cartman and Kyle taking opposing sides in front of the President.

“For God’s sake, Cartman! We can’t bomb the Chinese! Mutually assured destruction exists for a _reason!_ ”

“Kahl, don’t you _understand?_ We have to assert! Our! Authoritah!”

“For fuck’s sake, you dumb shit, do you even have a single brain cell left?”

“I’ve got more than you, at least, you morally bankrupt Jew!”

“Oh, as if you’ve got any sort of a leg to stand on! Every time I think you won’t stoop any lower you surprise me, you know that Cartman! I thought that whole time in Libya just couldn’t be topped, but nope! You just keep outdoing yourself!”

“Eh! We agreed we were not talking about what happened in Libya!”

“Yeah, because you don’t want anyone to hear about how you-“

“Boys?”

The President looks at them with confusion, possibly because he’s gotten too old to process anything by now. Kyle glances at him. “Yeah?”

“You were talking about...nuking China?”

“To nuke or not to nuke; that is the question,” Cartman says, and Kyle rolls his eyes. Cartman read Hamlet _one time_ and thinks it makes him smart. It doesn’t. At all. Kyle’s surprised Cartman can actually _read,_ considering he’s got an average grade of about 43.

The President puzzles. “I...don’t understand. “You boys were talking about nuking, and then...”

Cartman and Kyle glance at each other. _Oh._

Kyle shrugs, looking at the ground. “He’s an infuriating piece of shit,” He says, jabbing at thumb at Cartman. “Someone has to keep him in his place.” He doesn’t know why the room suddenly feels warm.

Cartman just looks at the President like he’s lost his mind. “Mr. President, someone has to keep this great country from falling prey to the whims of pussy-whipped tree-huggers like Kyle here.”

“Oh, as if you give half a shit about the greatness of America!” Kyle says, and promptly forgets about it, shaking his head and putting the whole thing off as some sort of weird slip-up.

*

(xxiv.)

“Pst, Kyle.”

“Kyle.”

“ _Kahl._ ”

“What do you _want,_ Cartman?” Kyle mutters under his breath, shifting back in his seat in the hopes that the teacher won’t hear him.

“When the hell did they sign the Magna Carta?”

“Why are you asking me _now,_ Cartman, during the test! We had _weeks_ to study-“

“But _Kahl._ ” Cartman’s eyes go wide and he pouts in the way that he thinks make him look cute, although it really doesn’t.

Kyle looks back down on his test, and keeps writing. He’s a solid two pages ahead of Cartman. Now, if he could just remember the name of Bismarck’s most famous speech-

He sighs, looking back at Cartman, and in that moment Kyle hates his teacher immensely for catching on to their dynamic and deciding that they needed to ‘learn how to cooperate and understand each other better.’ The only thing Kyle was understanding better was how much he wanted to strangle Cartman.

...And sometimes he spends the rest of the day running over something Cartman said in his head, over and over until he has no clue why his brain insists on making him contemplate it further, and he’ll think that he understands Cartman _less._ He was pretty easy to understand, back when Kyle was nine and hated his guts enough to actively want to murder him. But these days there’s less outright maiming – although that isn’t to say that Kyle doesn’t feel tempted – and more just a lot of arguing. Stan just pulls out his headphones at this point whenever that stuff happens, and Kenny’s usually smoking a joint anyways. He _knows_ they seem to hate each other a lot, and there are moments...but there’s also times where Kyle _likes_ having Cartman around, likes it a lot, and he thinks that if he didn’t have Cartman to bitch at and fight with, honestly, things would get kind of boring.

He’s still not thanking his teacher, though.

He looks back to Cartman, who’s still giving him the damn puppy eyes. He rolls his eyes and kicks him in the shin.

“Ow, Kahl, what the fuck-“ Cartman says loudly, and Kyle leans over to write, _1215_ on Cartman’s paper, grinning when the teacher comes over to give him shit about disturbing the other students’ concentration.

*

(xxv.)

“You know if you want to do well you actually have to _study,_ right?”

“Studying is for nerds, Kyle. And besides, I’ve got an encyclopedia sitting next to me in class anyways.”

“I’m not giving you any more answers, fatass.” Kyle says.

“Fine, be a Jew with your answers.”

“That didn’t even make _sense._ ”

“Yes it did. You’re Jewing your knowledge like you Jew your money.” Kyle wonders at how Cartman can turn a proper noun into a verb, and decides that he’s better off focusing on his math homework.

“Knowledge is freely accessible. You’ve got the Internet.”

Cartman sighs dramatically, like his whole life is a chore. “We should play video games,” he suggests.

“We should study.”

“No, we should play video games and eat junk food.”

Kyle’s eyes hurt and the quadratic equation is starting to blur with the cubic one. He sets his jaw, and tries rereading it for what must be the seventeenth time. He leans back and hits his head against the wall, staring up at the ceiling in frustration.

“Fine,” he grits out. “We’ll play video games.”

“Fantastic,” Cartman says. “Imma go raid your kitchen.”

“Imagine my surprise,” Kyle says, and the corner of his mouth lifts when Cartman shouts back “Hey!”

Every time the two of them hang out it always ends up like this; Kyle dragged away from his studies by Cartman, staying up well past midnight wasting time, usually on a school night to boot. Every time, Kyle will hear his parents’ voices in the back of his head, talking about universities and how he _has_ to do well, has to go to a good school so he can go to a good law school so he can get a good job so he can live so he can be happy, and every time, Kyle will ignore it. Like an idiot.

God only knows why.

Cartman steps back into the kitchen, arms overflowing with candy and chips and cheap chocolate. “You ready?” He says, and here’s why Kyle ignores everything in order to do stupid shit with Cartman: because as soon as he slams his math book shut he feels _alive,_ like he could take on the whole world and win, like nothing else matters.

He grabs his controller, looks at it, and thinks.

“Hey,” he says, looking up, and Cartman’s looking right back at him.

“You want to go to Las Vegas and start a pyramid scheme?”

For a second, Cartman just stares at him. “I did not expect that from you.”

Kyle knows, rationally, that he’s being an idiot, but whatever; he’s fifteen and he’s allowed to do stupid shit, and, well, in for a penny, in for a pound. (He’s always been in for more than a penny, with Cartman.)

He shrugs. “Is that a no?”

Cartman just looks at him like he’s lost his mind, and Kyle thinks he has; tomorrow he’ll go back to being self-righteous and moral and studious and all that other crap. Tonight...he’s going to do something stupid.

Cartman shakes his head. “That’s a resounding yes. Show me what you got, Jew boy.”

Kyle grins. “If you say so.”

*

(xxvi.)

When Kyle is sixteen he gets kidnapped by Islamic terrorists. (Bureaucratic terrorists, but still.)

It is partially Cartman’s fault, of course; he teamed up with them in the name of stopping the Jews from attaining world hegemony; Kyle tried to point out that there are significantly more Muslims in the world than Jews. Cartman had metaphorical wax in his ears the entire time.

Cartman’s there when they lock him up, an executive council meeting of the Great Islamic Bureaucracy (second in power only to Allah Himself and Mohammed). Six years ago, he would’ve been surprised that Cartman wasn’t yelling taunts at him; now he’s mostly surprised to have gotten stuck in here, and a bit enraged.

It wasn’t Cartman who kidnapped him; some lunatic ran into the school and decided on holding seven kids for ransom. But Cartman was still _there_ when they put Kyle behind bars, and Kyle is ready to fucking deck him for it, if only someone would open the goddamned gates and possibly give him a map of this stupid fucking bunker.

Why on earth he ever trusts Cartman, he has no clue. If you go by Einstein’s definition, Kyle is _criminally_ insane.

Some of the kids are wailing in the background Kyle ignores them, focusing on making a plan. He’s need something to pick the locks; he’s learned how to do it with a paper clip and/or a baseball bat from that time he spent with Antifa when he was thirteen. A weapon would be good, although the best thing he’s got right now is his shoelaces.

“Fucking Cartman,” Kyle swears under his breath, pacing about in the cell. He’d thought, God help him, that maybe the two of them were getting to be _friends,_ that maybe they weren’t going to end up murdering it, but well, if Cartman wants to play hardball, Kyle can play hardball. It is what it is.

He doesn’t know why something in his chest feel utterly crushed at the notion. It makes him feel all of nine years old again, hugging Cartman only to find out that he was a fucking liar and a schemer to top it off, that feeling of having been duped because he – he what? Not trusted – Kyle wouldn’t trust Cartman with a sofa cushion. But Kyle – Kyle had _cared._

Fuck. That’s been his problem all along, hasn’t it? He _cares_ about Cartman, in spite of his better judgement.

Kyle is an idiot, for various reasons, but he elects not to focus on that. (Preferably, he’ll never have to think about that, and it can stay shoved into a neat little box that he never has to touch again.)

Just as he’s trying to work out how to whittle down the bars with a plastic spoon, Cartman steps in front of him.

He clears his throat; everyone else’s gaze immediately snaps to him, whimpering with eyes full of fear, but Kyle just tries to glare a hole in his head.

“You fucking bitch,” He says, and Cartman glances at him. There’s something in his eyes – Kyle can’t quite read it.

“My fellow brothers-in-arms,” he says, spreading his hands , but lacking the usual grandeur Kyle’s come to expect from Cartman giving dumb shit speeches.

“As a token of our affection, the Brotherhood has elected to grant you a Quran, the great book of teachings in our great religion. We expect you to read these passages aloud and understand the ideals, values and morals put forth by the Islamic religion, and how the Bureaucracy allows expects us all to uphold them. If you fails to read these passages, you will be sent on a glorious mission to rid the world of infidels with nothing but your trusty bomb belt.”

He pulls out a hand from behind his back, and Kyle glances at the book; Quran, no surprise there.

“Jew,” Cartman says, and Kyle rolls his eyes, taking the book as it’s passed to him.

“Fatass,” he replies. “I can’t believe you’re still such a prick,” he says, slipping up.

Cartman’s eyebrows go up. “You should know better than that by now, enemy mine,” He smirks, and walks off.

Kyle opens the book, ready to rip it open and possibly use it as a murder weapon, but something clinks on the floor, flashing in the dim light.

He picks up and holds the key to the light, and he shakes his head, grinning.

“Learn another trick, Cartman,” He says to himself, because he still has that knife somewhere in his drawers.

He translated the inscription a few weeks back. Du gibst mir einen Grund zu kämpfen; _You give me a reason to fight._ Could be taken in various ways.

Kyle breaks them all the hell out of there. There’s a big fucking thing at the end; Mr. Garrison wants to nuke the whole of the Middle East, and Randy tries to sell the terrorists weed, and Kenny gets sent in as a suicide bomber. In the end, it all turns out fine and they have to go to school the next day.

Apparently it’s _so_ normal that Cartman thinks he can just show up outside his house and asks to hang out afterwards.

As soon as he says it, Kyle grabs him by the collar, shoves him against the wall, and bares his teeth, looking straight into Cartman’s eyes.

“If you ever sell me out to terrorists again, I will eviscerate you and decorate the entire city with your organs. Understood?”

Cartman’s eyes go wide, and Kyle remembers the first time he ever really _noticed_ Cartman, all the way back when they were nine and he enacted his vengeance on Scott Tenorman, and he thinks there’s something like _respect_ in Cartman’s eyes. Which, wow, fucked up now that he realizes it, but when he thinks of it, some of that’s been there all along. Kyle’s never been afraid to play dirty. Not with Cartman

Cartman’s paralyzed for about three whole seconds, before his hands come up to Kyle’s wrists and he shoves him off. “As if, Jew. Like you could beat me in anything.” Kyle doesn’t bring up that time with the Bobby Flay, but he knows Cartman knows it, and he smiles smarmily. “Yeah, right,” He says, and hauls him off the door step.

“Imma go grab my wallet,” he says, and Cartman shrugs. “Whatever, dude, just hurry up.”

He grabs his stuff and kicks up a cloud of gravel dust in Cartman’s face as he walks by him. “Hey!” Cartman yells, and Kyle just keeps walking.

“Hurry up!” He mimes, and Cartman’s saying. “Oh, you fucking-“ grabbing a handful of snow off the ground and chucking it in his face. It escalates, until eventually they’re somewhere near the pond, the groceries Kyle’s mom said he needed to buy forgotten.

Kyle turns over to look at Cartman. “You know, you’re a bitch for getting me captured, but you’re a decent friend for getting me out. Thanks. Asshole.”

Cartman looks away, and Kyle thinks he’s blushing, for some reason. “Forget it, Jew.”

Kyle shrugs. “If you say so. But remember that’s the first and only time I’m ever telling you ‘thank you’.”

“Liar,” Cartman says, but he’s grinning.

Kyle still thinks that he hasn’t really learned his lesson – he never does, with Cartman.

But he looks at him, smiling like a maniac, and some part of him can’t help but want to smile back; he hasn’t been able to stop himself for seven years.

*

(xxvii.)

Somewhere in the back of his mind, he thinks, _oh._ He puts some loose pieces together, and his heart beats faster than it probably should.

...But that’s a story for another day.

**Author's Note:**

> Scene/ Episode Index  
> 1 – Scott Tenorman Must Die  
> 2 – Kenny Dies  
> 3 – Casa Bonita  
> 4 – Cartoon Wars  
> 6 – Go God Go XII  
> 7 – Le Petit Tourette  
> 8 – Imaginationland Trilogy  
> 9 – Tonsil Trouble  
> 10 – Whale Whores  
> 12 - 200  
> 13 – It’s a Jersey Thing  
> 14 - Crack Baby Athletic Association  
> 15 – Jewpacabra  
> 16 – Skank Hunt  
> 17 – Mexican Joker
> 
> Thanks for reading, and feedback is appreciated! (Especially with these two. I've been watching this show for _years_ and Kyle and Cartman's dynamic is still really bloody hard for me to nail down, I swear.)


End file.
